LG VELVET Smartphone with LG Dual Screen

The LG Velvet retails for $599.99 on AT&T in the United States. In Germany, the phone retailed for around €650. While the design is no doubt gorgeous, there is a lot of competition that is more powerful for the same price or less. Almost every phone on the market has a killer feature that would make you buy it above other devices.

The LG Velvet is powered by a variant of the Snapdragon 765 processor. It's not as robust as Qualcomm's latest 865 processor, but it's what keeps the phone's price relatively low. The camera has a digital zoom up to 10x. Photos taken with the front-facing camera were clear, with accurate skin-tone and colors.

The LG Velvet has a second 6.8-inch P-OLED screen attached to a case. It's a heavier, less elegant solution than Samsung's Galaxy Fold, but more affordable and (probably) more durable long-term. I love the svelte body, the performance is more than adequate for most people, and the battery life is decent. The camera is the phone's biggest weakness, and will take the Velvet out of contention for frequent smartphone photographers. The phone is an attractive, lightweight phone that scores well across the board.

The LG Velvet ships with Android 10 and LG UX 10. The software feels identical to what you get on the LG V60 ThinQ. LG UX is a pretty painless experience for those who are invested in Google's ecosystem. The Velvet is the first LG smartphone to feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G 5G Mobile Platform.

The LG Velvet has a 6.8-inch P-OLED panel (2460x1080, 395 PPI) with a 20.5:9 aspect ratio. The rear and front-facing camera can record video in 4K at 30 FPS. The 48-MP camera cannot shoot 4K60 video. The smartphone comes with a 24-month warranty.

The Velvet is the first Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 phone I've tested. It's billed as a midrange-to-high-end chip, not a flagship. AT&T is offering the Velvet for $300 on an installment plan. The Pixel 4a has a somewhat better camera and no bloatware.

The LG Velvet is a very capable Android phone with a great camera. It has a Snapdragon 765G processor, 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The phone is IP68-rated for protection against dust and water, and has 25W fast charging. There's a fingerprint sensor built into the display for actually getting into your phone.

The Velvet has a decent 4300mAh battery and can easily last through a day of varied usage for the average user. LG offers reasonable 25W fast charging but getting to 31% in 30 minutes starting from 0 is nothing to write home about. Still, I wasn't expecting to find wireless charging here so that's a nice extra. stereo speakers are very impressive with better sound than most budget Bluetooth speakers.

The LG Velvet has the Snapdragon 765G chipset, one of the most important processors in the effort to bring down the cost of 5G phones. There's a dedicated Night View mode that takes slightly longer to capture an image, but improves color fidelity. The front camera has a 16MP sensor, the SK Hynix hi-1634. It can render and retain details like individual eyelashes indoors in moodily lit rooms.

The Velvet's cameras aren't terrible, but they're not great. The image quality feels incongruous with the phone's build quality. You're firmly in mid-range territory here. The Velvet does, however, wring excellent battery life out of the 765.

T-Mobile sells an LG Velvet that's powered with MediaTek's Dimenisty 1000c system-on-chip. The 4,300 mAh inside the AT&T version of the LG Velvet hints at decent battery life. LG Velvet runs Android 10 with LG's overly fussy UX skin.

The LG Velvet is a good alternative if you’re against going full-on flagship. The camera array consists of a main 48-megapixel sensor that can shoot 4K video at 30fps, a secondary 5MP depth sensor and a welcome 8MP ultrawide. Around the front there’s a 16MP selfie camera that also works for face unlock if you'd rather not use the in-display fingerprint scanner.

;T model was filled to the brim with bloatware. The custom Android interface is otherwise OK, if peppered with annoying quirks. The camera app suggests there's a zoom camera, but it's just the main camera digitally zooming in. If you want a good phone for very little money, go for the Google Pixel 4A.